42 
THE CONDOR 
Vol. XV 
some more apparently authentic information which is worthy of recording, furnished me by 
a person whose name will be withheld for the present. San Luis Obispo was the main out- 
fitting station for the pigeon hunting during the great flight of 1911-12. 
One market hunter, shooting for the San Francisco market, killed 280 pigeons under 
one oak in one day. This same hunter was shooting every day during the flight, so it can 
be imagined what a nnmber he must have killed. One dealer in ammunition sold 3500 shot- 
gun shells for one day’s hunt, and he says that on that day the individuals on this excur- 
sion brought in 1560 birds. These figures, together with the note previously published in 
The Condor (xiv, 1912, p. 108), will give some idea of the extent of the slaughter. I firmly 
believe that these figures are not exaggerated, and that they are not far from the truth. 
Hunters are now reporting a few pigeons at San Luis Obispo and at Santa Barbara. 
The first noted each year are termed scouts by the old hunters, who believe that the main 
army sends scouts on ahead to report on food conditions. The hunters are looking for an- 
other big flight this winter. 
I will be in this country regularly during the coming season, and will keep a close watch 
on this beautiful but apparently doomed bird. — W. Lee Chambers. 
No-Sale of American-killed Wild Game. — Readers of The Condor, and especially 
members of the Cooper Club, should take every opportunity to correct impressions which 
are being distributed broadcast apropos the effect of a “No-sale” law. 
It has even been said that this measure is “class legislation.” Laws which permit the 
sale of game are, it is true, class legislation of the worst type. They permit a few hun- 
dred market gunners, and the wealthy hotel and cafe patrons who are financially able to 
purchase game to reap the benefits of that which is protected at the instance of all people 
of the state. They are also allow'ing the rapid extermination of our best native species. 
Every animal which has been allowed to be exploited for profit has been practically ex- 
terminated. Even the whales of the sea are no exception ! Remember the sea otter, 
the buffalo, the passenger pigeon ! 
To allow of the unlimited sale of game in California, as Assemblymen Harry Polsley of 
Red Bluff and Milton Schmidt of San Francisco desire, would be to cause its utter ex- 
termination within ten years. 
Letters on file in the California Museum of Vertebrate Zoology indicate that ducks 
and geese have decreased from fifty to ninety-five per cent in the San Joaquin Valley in 
the last ten years. 
We must have No-sale, and we must have it immediately. — W. P. Tayeor. 
An Unfortunate Dove. — On Monday, June 17, 1912, near Goose Lake in Modoc 
Count\', 1 found the body of a Mourning Dove which had met death as the result of a very 
peculiar misfortune. The bird was found on a horizontal beam four inches wide in an 
old deserted barn. It was facing the wall, i. e., lying 
crossw'ise of the beam, with the tail hanging ovei 
and closely hugging the side of the timber, as 
though its death throes were concerned wdth main- 
taining its precarious position. The cause of deatn 
was not far to seek. The upper mandilfle had been 
jammed backward and downward through or be- 
hind the ramus of the low^er one, wdience it could 
not be retracted. Not only so, hut skinning showed 
that the windpipe had been caught and .skewered, 
and pushed forward along with the distended skin 
of the mentum. The bird was in a very emaciated 
condition, insomuch that the skin was very largely 
adherent to the flesh, and the end of the breast- 
bone touched the anus. The viscera w^ere a 
green mass, which for fear of poisoning w'e did 
not dissect for sex indication ; but the bird seemed 
recently dead, inasmuch as there was no offensive 
smell, and the feathers were firmly in place. More- 
over, no insect pests had begun to attack it. 
Mr. Allan Brooks who has e.xamined the 
^ specimen, is ot opinion that its piignt was 
due to a recent head-on collision with a telegraph wire, and cites the example of a 
Western Chipping Sparrow whose bill was in exactly similar condition save that the wind 
